Greydisc 2017
SÁNDOR SZABÓ –
Invocation
When deities need no words to hear voices in the wilderness, strings create acoustic hosanna.
KK and SS get to know each other more and more with every new record, “Invocation” being their seventh joint effort as a duo, and the guitarists’ weave is possessed with immense intimacy, yet this offering has an extra dimension to it – a divine one. Ostensibly based on liturgy, the album creates a specifically transcendental headspace where not a lot of things seems to be happening, although there are many hidden moves under the hood.
Hymnal by nature, “Akathist” wraps a bubbling bottom end into nomadic trills that reach out for the tune’s event horizon only to be lost in their own dance on the way to cosmic infinity, while the interplay of “Psalm” is embracing acoustic exquisiteness. But then echoes subside to bring about the quiet joys of “Antiphon” whose two riveting parts pass a gypsy romance and prayer to other slowed-down double shots: “Litany” and “Vigil.” These compositions detail what’s supposed to be solemn exercises in serving God with emotional flurries of notes, yet “Consecration” may present an ultimate paradox when this tuneful ebb is infused with pregnant pauses
Still, where “Vobiscum” sounds vibrantly abstract and the stardust of “Orison”dissipates in aural vacuum, “Chant” has its sonics condensed in melodious Morse code of Renaissance stripe, and the elusive beauty of “Hymn” is being revealed progressively towards the piece’s finale. It’s a spiritual experience which would welcome everyone ready to believe.
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